London Oxford Airport?

[Gavin Scott]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfo ... 205130.stm

This seems a bit ridiculous to me.

Oxford airport have decided to rename themselves London Oxford Airport, despite being some 60 miles from the capital. The next furthest away would be Southend or Stanstead - both 43 miles from London's centre, but Stanstead at least has adequate transport links.

Oxford, on the other hand, appears to have no transport links, but their spokesman is nonplussed by concerns on that score, suggesting that all of his business customers are likely to have drivers to collect them.

So that's all right then.

Why bother "raising your profile" and pretending to be a London airport when anyone landing there will quickly discover you're not - especially when, by his own admission, he has no reliable way of measuring how successful the rebrand is.

For reference, the distance between Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports is 48 miles.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source= ... 8&t=h&z=10

So - smart thinking or big fat liar?

[Alexia]

I thought London Luton was bonkers - Luton is in Bedfordshire, nowhere near Greater London. Similarly London Southend, which is on the east coast of the country, and, oh yeah, in Essex.

Is it me or is this more to do with the fact that budget airlines can now genuinely claim to fly to London, rather than NEAR London? "Yeh mate we do fly to London Airport...well, one of them..."

Also - Nottingham East Midlands Airport...is actually closer to Derby than Nottingham!

[Beep]

'London Birmingham International Airport' ?

[Gavin Scott]

I thought London Luton was bonkers - Luton is in Bedfordshire, nowhere near Greater London.

I got over Luton because its sleazy Jet's hub, therefore cheap - so now I'm *deeply* familiar with both it and it's bus and train routes to the city.

When I do the red eye flight I tend to take the bus so I can snooze for a decent time, otherwise the coach to Luton Parkway and the train is fast enough.

But Oxford?

Good grief.

[wells]

'London Birmingham International Airport' ?

I think that would somewhat cheapen the name.

[dosxuk]

Not much different to Doncaster Sheffield Rotherham Hull York England UK Robin Hood Maid Marrion Airport.

Soon we'll have airports named after their website addresses, or the people who live on the corner by the entrance to the carpark.

[iSon]

Also - Nottingham East Midlands Airport...is actually closer to Derby than Nottingham!

Actually, the airport's name kind of went back a little and is now "East Midlands Airport - Nottingham, Leicester, Derby" as a way of solving the row over what the airport was going to be called after each city wanted to claim ownership. That's acceptable because naturally the bi-line tends to fall away and people are happy enough to just call it East Midlands Airport - as indeed it's known internationally.

As soon as I saw the story I was straight on here and what a surprise to find comments already. I'm afraid my cynical mind goes no further than this story being a stunt that raises the profile of the airport and makes people realise they can fly from Oxford when naturally people in the area would consider Heathrow or Gatwick a better option. It'll be back to Oxford Airport in a couple of weeks - mark my words.

[Chris]

I've no idea why they even bother to tack "London" on the front of airports which are nowhere near London.

For years, I thought Stansted was near London, but when I had to fly from there recently, I found that it actually was in Essex, and I nearly fell off my chair when I tried to plan a train to it, and found it'd take nearly 2+ hours by normal train. "London" Stansted my arse.

I think the only airports that really should have the "London" tacked to it are Heathrow and Gatwick, because they're roughly within the outer reaches of Greater London.

[Gavin Scott]

I think the only airports that really should have the "London" tacked to it are Heathrow and Gatwick, because they're roughly within the outer reaches of Greater London.

London City could be on that list.

If you can afford it.

[Alexia]

Even though it's always been Heathrow for as long as I've been alive, thanks to Thunderbirds I still think of it as London Airport.

[Beep]

Funnily enough, Birmingham International is in Solihull and is closer to Solihull than Birmingham.